


isn’t this the part where someone says…

by Hope



Series: Rodriguez 'verse [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time in Mexico, The Faculty
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-24
Updated: 2004-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>part of the Rodriguez 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	isn’t this the part where someone says…

It turns out that El has money.  He drives them into El Paso himself, navigating the dusty campers piloted by sweaty, straw-hatted midlife crises into the dusk after Zeke and Casey would have normally pulled the car over and drifted to sleep with the sinking sun, the cool night folding over them like a blanket.  Casey's up in the backseat, if not exactly bright-eyed; the warm lights glimmer beneath his steadily half-mast eyelids that seem to stick stubbornly whenever he blinks.

Zeke winds down the front window and rests his forearm on the still sun-warm edge of the door, letting in the smell and heat of spices and dust and exhaust fumes, the sweat-and-hot vinyl air of the car interior shifting sluggishly in response.

The hotel squats low on the dusty ground and El has the biggest item of luggage with him by far; the guitar case held firm and steady as his footsteps _ching_ rhythmically across the concrete-paved parking lot.  Casey still has his dog-eared duffle bag and camera clutched to his chest, and Zeke ensures the presence of cigarettes in his back pocket before following them, making use of the pause as El unlocks their door to rise on tiptoes and stretch out the knots and tangles in his knees and back, joints popping.

Zeke isn't quite sure when the last time he _hadn't_ considered hot water a luxury, but it seems that Casey's of the same mind when El has time to go out, pick up burgers, come back and eat a whole one and half a serve of fries before Casey emerges from the closet bathroom, wet hair still clinging to his skull and skin flushed red.  He eats barely a third of his own burger, as if suspecting it's poisoned (though that attitude didn't stop him from deciding not to spend the night in the car as usual), and Zeke scarfs the remainder himself, though the result of making that point seems to manifest itself more in indigestion on Zeke's part than self-realisation on Casey's.

El settles into one of the twin beds, still fully clothed bar the angular black jacket, and Casey and Zeke top-and-tail in the other.  The pillow is coolly damp under Zeke's cheek where his still-wet hair has blotted onto it, but it serves as a balm to ease the dark heat of the night as everything falls still and the room glows steamy orange from the streetlights oozing through the too-thin curtains.

The first time Zeke wakes up, it's because someone's moving around the room - he can hear the measured _tap_ of heels against the tiled floor, and the soft jingle of chains.  His limbs feel impossibly heavy, weighted with inertia, and it takes him a couple of sleep-addled moments before he can take stock of the majority of sensory input being gradually gathered; he can't turn his head back to look properly because Casey's forehead is pressed to the back of his neck, eyelashes scraping his shoulder blade, damp breath prickling against his back.  Casey's fingers - cold, impossibly - curled against his ribcage, and Casey's knobbly knees pressing the back of Zeke's thighs.  Zeke hears the door open and close, with not much change in the light filtering soft red through Zeke's still-closed eyelids, and he moves just enough to let a pocket of air flow between Casey's body and his own, cooling the sweat-stick of his skin, before surrendering to suffocating oblivion again.

The second time he wakes up he can't pinpoint a sound or light because it happens instantly; his eyes open and he's aware that the sheets are damp and tangled around him, and he can barely breathe because the air is so thick with heat.  He struggles upward from the sunken pillow, propping himself up with arms extended behind him, and the barely-cooler air feels abrasive on his bare arms.

Casey's sitting on the edge of the tiny bed, back curved like a bass clef with percussive knobs of spine.

"Casey, wha--" Zeke's mouth is thick with dust and sleep, the taste awful as he curls his mouth up and swallows reluctantly. "What--?" Casey doesn't move and Zeke sits up further, leaning closer to Casey and--

Shit. He can hear Casey's breath hissing rapidly through his nostrils in the sudden heavy silence in the small room, he can see what Casey's looking at; El's sleek black guitar case cracked open and the thin facade of the instrument half-ajar to reveal what's beneath. Shit.

"What--" Zeke's says dumbly again, as if it's taking a while for his mouth to catch up with the rapid, almost painful cranking of his brain.  His gun.  His gun was tucked into his belt, but no, that was only for the first week-or-so before they got well into the south, before the dry and heat baked complacency into him, so where the fuck is it now?  In the car? In Casey's bag, oh fuck, fuck--

"This is not good, Zeke," Casey says, his voice harsh and grating and sounding as if it hurts to come out.  "This is not fucking good."

"What the hell were you doing going through his stuff, anyway?" and oops, there goes Zeke mouth again without his brain's permission but it's too late to take that back now as Casey wheels on him, teeth bared and skin mottled red with the heat, white hot, jaw clenched.

"Are you out of your fucking mind? Have you been out of your fucking mind for the past five days? This is not the fucking time to be going on about proprietary, this is fucking--"

Zeke wonders how he ever mistook this kind of response from Casey as panic, instead of fury.  Casey's head drops and the heels of his palms dig viciously into his eye sockets.  Zeke thinks he might be about to puke.

"Shouldn't be in this city.  Shouldn't be staying here.  Should never have picked him _up_."  Casey stands and the guitar case gives a double-click as Casey slams the cover shut again with his foot, hiding the dark gleam of El's weaponry.  "Should get the fuck out of here."  He paces the room jerkily, shoving stray items of clothes into his duffle, and Zeke can see his hands shaking as he scrabbles through the greasy burger papers on the small table for Zeke's cigarettes.

"Casey," Zeke says finally, and his voice is somehow relatively steady as he watches Casey flick Zeke's zippo with far too much ease, sucking in a lungful of fresh smoke violently.  "Casey, jesus christ."

"What." The zippo snips sharply closed, Casey starts pacing again.

"If he was going to do anything, he would have done it days ago, when we were still in the desert, when we were the only fucking people around for fucking _miles_\--"

"-- or maybe he wanted to wait until we were in a fucking hub of human activity, Zeke, where he could do the most damage--"

"_Casey_.  This has nothing to do with us, he's just--"

"Just what, Zeke?  Just toting enough fucking gunpower to be a one-man army? What the hell do you think that's all about, then? This fucking hotel room? The meal?"

"Maybe he just wanted to pay us back for the ride.  Maybe--"

"Fuck this, Zeke.  _Fuck_ this."  Casey drops back down to the bed that Zeke's still sitting in, still-sweaty and more than half bewildered.  "We have to get the fuck out of here."  Soft grey ash trembles onto the knee of his stained blue jeans, and Zeke steals the now-abandoned cigarette from where Casey's hand rests on his thigh.  The smoke in his throat is like swallowing needles, or straw, scraping on the way down, sharpening his senses to the point of pain.  He can hear cars outside, and the familiar shouts of traffic, and the shower running in the room next to them, smell the sweat and smoke in the air and see the infinitesimal shift of Casey's shoulders as the tense muscles slump.

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/27166.html


End file.
